Page 40 of Curvy Girl Summer

“Four kids?”

“Here are your drinks,” Ahmad interrupted slowly, placing the glasses in front of us.

When our eyes met, I could tell he’d heard the conversation.

“Thanks, man,” Donte said, handing him a credit card.

I shifted my gaze back to the man sitting next to me. “Your profile said you didn’t have any kids.”

“Yeah, I like to let women get to know me before bringing up my kids.”

I took a sip of my drink, trying to think of how I was going to approach the situation without being rude. “You lied on your profile, though,” I blurted out.

“I didn’t lie. I just want a fair shot.”

I shook my head. “No, if you didn’t say anything about your kids on your profile, I could see your point. But you straight up said you didn’t have any children, but in reality, you have four.”

He took a long gulp of his rum and Coke. “Is that going to be a problem for you?”

“Well, yeah.”

He shook his head and let out an aggressive puff of air. “Great. You and I hit it off, didn’t we?”

“Yeah. We did.”

“So, why does this change anything? You hate kids or something?”

“Donte…” I couldn’t hide my exasperation if I wanted to. “We’ve been talking all week, and you never said anything. How did you not bring up the fact that you havefourkids?”

“Here’s your card back,” Ahmad said slowly, looking between us.

“Thanks.” Snatching the card, Donte tipped his head back and finished his drink. “Are you really not going to give me a chance because I have kids? Really, Aaliyah?”

I was going to explain that he lied. I was going to tell him not to flip the script and make it my fault. I was going to respond with a lot of things, but I didn’t have the energy.

“Yeah,” I said flatly.

“Wow!” Donte exclaimed. “That’s kind of shallow, don’t you think? I didn’t think you would have an issue with kids. But okay. It was nice meeting you, I guess.”

“Yeah, you, too,” I muttered as he left.

I was in shock.

It was such an unbelievable turn of events that I couldn’t even get up from my seat.

“You good?” Ahmad asked as he was in the middle of mixing drinks.

I nodded but remained quiet.

“Brush it off,” he told me before sliding the drinks to the waiting customers.

“I’m fine,” I assured him quietly. “He wasn’t it.”

“Tell me something…” He returned to his position in front of me, placing his hands on the bar. “And I want you to say the first thing that comes to mind.”

I gave him a suspicious look. “Okay…?”

“How are you going to know when heisit?”

---